Mark Hultgren   Wordpress Specialist
Hey G-man!
Congrats for getting selected!

Here's my question for you. Besides Apsense, what other online businesses or niches do you focus on?
Nov 17th 2007 07:41   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
I can already see that this will be an interesting week. Elliott Ness will be providing us with his insight! (Sorry I just could not help myself)
Nov 17th 2007 08:02   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Good God Mark! Ok, will do my best to answer this without pitching(or gunning anyone down..apparently..lol)

I first started out offline in network marketing(telecommunications). I did truely believe that I had the BEST opportunity available...until several months later when my upline "crossed the floor" to a different company and suddenly my team basically fell apart once we all realized that almost everything we had been learning was a lie.

Then the unexpected happened, a close family member had a near-fatal accident leaving me to basically run the family operation myself. So suddenly I no longer had the time to do all the running around doing presentations and all that other fun stuff(I had just started with another company). So I turned online......man did I have no clue what I was in for!

The next several months I spent doing exhaustive research...I had found a wellness company that looked really good to me, and felt it was a good fit as since my father's accident I had been a lot more focused on safety, well-being and such. A couple months later I decided to go for.....with caution....I didn't want to be mis-led or mis-led anyone again. So far, so good! The company has lived up to my expectations and I very well intend to get more serious with it in the very near future.

Another area I have done a lot of research and some testing, is marketing. Obvisous I guess as we are all marketers here. Really like this area of the business though...there are endless ways to promote, whether it be our site's or ourselves. I enjoy creating...writing blogs and advertisements...from a more unconventional point of view. Still pretty new to the blogging and web 2.0, or the internet for that matter! But I am planning on getting started over at wordpress soon once I have got a little more research and writing done(this will include or focus around my wellness biz). Am just getting started with social bookmarking too..as a means to drive traffic and most of you probably know I am getting into audio over at talkshoe....excited to learn more about these techniques and seeing where it takes me!

So, Most of my experience to date is in "relationship marketing" which I believe to be vital to any business.

other areas would be wellness, social networking(do have a couple other networks I have been playing in), and branding.

Future plans are to learn more concerning SEO, audio talkshows and probably enevitably video.
Nov 17th 2007 13:42   

Mark Hultgren   Wordpress Specialist
Thanks for the info G-man!
You said you liked nicknames - so I figured that would be a good one for you!
Sorry to hear about your family member's accident, but things happen for a reason, you never know why until you are well down the road!

If there is anything I can do to help, just let me know! I am a pretty fair hand at Wordpress and Joomla, so I may have some things you haven't thought about.
Nov 17th 2007 13:50   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Thanks Mark...I'm sure you do, we all seem to be learning so much from each other..proof how essential communication really is?
Nov 17th 2007 13:57   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
What networking sites do you recommend other than APSense?
Nov 18th 2007 07:40   

Thea Westra   Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!
Hello Garnet.
What are your all-time best 5 Top Tips do you have for building a highly responsive, quality subscriber list?

Nov 18th 2007 08:11   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Hi Cheryl,

Right now my other personal favorite is magneticsponsering.com It's still a brand new site, (and they have some great improvements in the works) there are some great people behind it and I know it's going to go a long ways.

Ojeez is another good one...haven't done much there yet myself but some great tools there

and of course there are many many others...APSense remains my favorite and I have done more here than anywhere else...magnetic and ojeez will be the next two I spend any amount of time at.
Nov 18th 2007 11:49   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Hi Thea,

Not sure I'm qualified to answer that but I'll give it a shot.

1 - (and the most important I believe) Make sure your subcribers are high quality subscribers and not just a bunch of names.....people who actually have an interest in buying what you are selling

2 - This may be subject to some debate...but email your list as often as possible, they are on your list because they want to hear from you, aren't they? Now this is pretty general, and depending just what you are marketing and what you are about it may vary...but this doesn't nessecarily mean you have to sell everytime you email them....use your imagination!)

3 - Don't wait until your list hits a thousand people to start marketing to them...you can start with just a handful of people(most people expect information fast when they join a list and they are also most ready to buy at this time)

4 - Keep it simple and to the point! Talk to people in their language...make sure what you write has a smooth flow, is easy to understand and to the point. Remember the job here is not to sell your product but to sell the CLICK to your SALES PAGE.

5 - Why should people join your list? We want them to join so they'll buy our products(and we make money) but that's no reason for them to join! Think about your prospects...WHAT'S IN IT FOR THEM? Offer them something in return for joining your list....and if the actual value is even higher than the anticpated value that's better yet. Pour some real value into everything that you offer!

That's my top 5 in a nutshell...open to discussion as always!


Nov 18th 2007 12:23   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Thanks for your answer.
Nov 18th 2007 16:40   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Your Welcome Chery!

Another one that might be worth mention is the rotatrix network....set some stuff up there a while back, forgot about it for probably a month or so, went back once for a few minutes and there are comments and contact request coming in my mail again like nuts...not sure yet whether thats a good thing or not...lol
Nov 18th 2007 19:20   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
I have not done rotarix. I've been involved in several networking sites and have not had much success except with APSense, MerchantCircle and RYZE. I've had to limit myself since a lot of my business is offline
Nov 18th 2007 19:26   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
You got referal links for those Cheryl?
Nov 18th 2007 19:56   

Thea Westra   Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!
Each are good points Garnet, however only number 5 was an answer to my question.
Do you have 4 more? :)
Really testing your metal here... All in good fun. It'll stretch you, me and everyone else.
We'll all learn something new. Hope you're willing to get back to my original question.
Cheers!

Nov 18th 2007 20:07   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Merchant Circle really has no referral link so here is the link to my listing. Scroll to the bottom and click on "home" and it will take you to the MerchantCircle Homepage.

http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/PrePaid.Legal.Services.210-317-7147

RYZE does not have a referral link either and it's been so long since I joined but there must be some way to navigate to it but I can't find it (possibly because I'm already a member) So I'll provide that page too. Hopefully RYZE home will take you somewhere!

http://www.ryze.com/go/CBaumgartner
Nov 18th 2007 20:50   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Thanks Cheryl...will be checking them out as sonn as I get a chance
Nov 18th 2007 22:07   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Thea...#3 definetly doesn't address your question..the others may depended how percieved and perhaps if I got into them in more detail...not sure exacty what you are asking but will give a couple more points at least....

#1 - Methods for getting people to sign up for your list.

So we want to focus on Quality, the source I would most likely choose would be google adwords. Now if you don't know what you are doing with this it can be very costly with no results(like if you were trying to sign people up in the highly saturated mlm market, you'd be spending at least $2 a click...whereas with a nitch you can easily get high ranks in the .05-.30 cent/click range, which is a lot cheaper than what a lot of people spend on pre-enrollies or whatever kind of lead)

Next your going to need a targeted keyword list, for this we need to ask:

-what will my target audience search for? and which search terms will they use?

Google has a free keyword generator and recommends tool which will help with this @
http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Next, write your ads. This can be challanging too, as you have a limited amount of space to work with. Remember all you trying to do is sell the click here...you need to make sure your ads will Attract/Grab their attention, state the problem and offer the solution. Try 2 or 3 different ads and see which one's work the best.

Obviously you would need a sales website to direct them to, and here you would have a subcription form for them to sign-up to your list.

2 - Your most important message is the very first one! Make sure you make your intentions clear right off the start. People are signed up to your list because they believe there is something in it for THEM! Whatever they believe is true....is truth in their minds! You have to influence what people believe to be the truth right from the start. Have HONEST INTENTIONS with people and make sure that they see them! Tell them exactly what to expect from your newsletter or email series, why it is a good idea for them to stay on your list and read every email you send them!

3 - Show them you ARE HUMAN! and not some mindless cash-grabbing machine! Add some personal little sidenotes to your emails, you don't have to get to involved and it's probably a good idea that you don't but just add some little things here and there that other people can and will appreciate. Do not flood them with sales messages, instead flood them with information that percieved as good(and likely is) for them. Even send them other peoples links, your subcribers will appreciate this as it really proves that you are not just worried about stuffing cash in your own pocket. Just make sure it is quality information, products or services!

4 - Involve them! Ask them questions, invite them to comment on your blog or maybe you could even have them do a survey...the more involved you are with them the more real you are, the more trust you have earned with them.

5 - Be yourself, don't worry about getting every last detail just right, don't worry about pleasing everyone! Not everyone is going to like you or what you are putting out there. Most people will enjoy and appreciate your efforts, forget those who would try and tear down everything you do just so they can feel bigger and better! Success comes to those of us who work for it and let NOTHING STAND IN OUR WAY!

Ok...so I ended up with another 5..lol Still feel like I'm forgeting something, Anyways I would just like to stress that this is all just my opinion based on life experience in business and resources that I have studied to date...I am no expert at list building..yet!

Feedback?


Nov 18th 2007 23:22   

Beth Schmillen   
Hi Garnet...

Let's see... I've been away for a few days and came back to find you have a
great new task that's been handed to you! I've enjoyed reading the questions
and answers you've covered so far.

What are the key things that any online marketer should do at the very
minimum to keep pace with their business when they feel they may be a little
burned out?

What causes burn out and is this just temporary?

Beth
Nov 21st 2007 00:18   

Not Here  just want my account deleted
Hi Beth,

New task for this week anyways...apparently they ran out of experts or something!

You asked: "What are the key things that any online marketer should do at the very
minimum to keep pace with their business when they feel they may be a little
burned out?"

Without knowing the specifics of the business...I would simply have to say to prioritise your tasks...focus your time on doing the things that need to be done to keep your biz going forward, leave the things that you would like to do but aren't a priority for another day and forget about the things you don't need to do at all, alltogether!!

Obvisious things are tasks like your email, don't waste your time reading a bunch of junk thats not worth the e-space it's written on....personally I only do business with people I either already know, or who have shown an interest in getting to know me. When ever I get email from someone I don't know, or that I did not request...I simply delete it!

Burnout I believe is temporary...provided you do take the time to get the rest you need before it's too late. You'll never do it all in a day anyways so it's just best to enjoy it as much as you can(I love what I do!), and take it day by day. A relaxed and focused mind will accomplish much more than one that is tired and burnt out!

Nov 21st 2007 01:04   

Thea Westra   Adding Wings To Our Unique Life Journey!
You did well Garnet. Thank you so much for all the information you dug out.
I am very certain that your information will definitely make a difference to someone here.

I particularly like "Be yourself, don't worry about getting every last detail just right, don't worry about pleasing everyone! Not everyone is going to like you or what you are putting out there."
A very important lesson for all entrepreneurs.

Thank you again and by the way, you can now do some cutting and pasting. You have all the necessary material for a terrific article. :)


Nov 21st 2007 03:56